


What We Did During Our Quarantine

by badxwolfxrising



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Baby Fic, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Kid Fic, Light Angst, Lock Down Fest 2020, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Quarantine, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, family fic, no beta we die like men, quarantine fest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23391637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badxwolfxrising/pseuds/badxwolfxrising
Summary: Rose and the Metacrisis Doctor return to Torchwood from Bad Wolf Bay and are placed in a mandatory 72 hour quarantine. However will they pass the time? }:-)Rated M for later chapters.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	1. Chapter 1

“You don’t have to be so nervous,” Rose whispered, giving his hand a reassuring little squeeze. “This is standard procedure after a dimension hop, nothing out of the ordinary. I’ll be right here with you the entire time.”

The new new new Doctor wasn’t so sure, though he was relieved to have Rose like an anchor by his side. “If it’s alien, it’s ours,” he said, echoing the words an audacious Yvonne Hartman had said to another version of himself what felt like a thousand some odd years ago. “What if they decide they want to cut me open and examine me? Or keep me to do experiments? First ever human-Time Lord Metacrisis, that’s a shiny trinket for sure. They’re Torchwood after all, it’s sorta what they do, innit?”

Rose just smiled broadly, squeezing his hand harder. “Well you don’t have to worry because that would only happen over my dead fucking body. My step-father is the director, he’d never let them do that to you and neither would I. Be careful what you say about Torchwood though cause at least in this universe, yours truly is one of them and half my family and friends are too.”

A nondescript door opened then and Jake came out, wearing a standard issue hazmat suit that was strangely reminiscent of the space suits they’d had on the Sanctuary Base. “Welcome home, Agent Tyler,” he said warmly, holding his arms open to give her an awkward hug. Peering over Rose’s shoulder, he locked eyes with the Doctor and winked. “Glad to see you back home safe. I heard the mission didn’t go quite as expected, but was successful nonetheless.

Rose chuckled nervously. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. Just anxious to get this all over with...feels like my entire life is on the other side of these seventy-two hours.”

Jake nodded. “Well you know the drill, but I’ll remind you again more for this one’s benefit. When you enter the decontamination chamber, please remove your clothing and shoes and place them in the designated yellow bins. If you have any small items or personal effects on you, please place those separately in the disposable zipper bags provided and leave them with your clothing, which will be returned after it’s been properly sanitized. Once you’ve undressed you can enter the showers, making sure to thoroughly wash with the provided germicidal soap for a minimum of two minutes but not more than ten. Clean towels, scrubs, and sandals are just outside the showers for you. Shagging in the decontamination chambers is supposedly forbidden but I won’t tell if you don’t,” Jake said with a knowing wink.

“Jake, shut up!” Rose hissed, elbowing him none too gently.

Jake shuffled away, giggling unrepentantly inside the hazmat suit. “I already prepped the isolation dorm for you guys and I even ordered you a cheeky Rando’s, so you’re welcome. Have fun, you crazy kids!”

The Doctor watched Jake walk away before looking back at Rose uncertainly. “Isolation dorm?” he asked, quirking his eyebrows.

Rose’s shoulders sagged just slightly. “Yeah...ever since the time Mickey accidentally brought back Sharonavirus, they require anyone returning from off planet missions of any kind to self-quarantine for a minimum of seventy-two hours in the on-site isolation dorms. Sorry, I know I should’ve mentioned that earlier when we were on the zeppelin but my mind is just everywhere right now, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around what happened on the beach.”

“It’s fine,” he lied, his single heart hammering away in his chest like a reenactment of a Poe story at the thought of being alone with Rose in close quarters for the next three days. There was so many things still unsaid between them and so much catching up to do. He himself had barely begun to process the ramifications of his own existence and that was one existential crisis he was in no particular hurry to be having so instead he deflected. “Sharonavirus? Like… _when you gonna give me some time, Sharona?_ ”

“Yeah, it was wild. Everyone who caught it couldn’t stop walking around singing The Knack, took out almost the entire IT department in less than two weeks,” she said, deadpan.

“Really?” he asked, incredulous.

“Of course not, you plum. It was an alien lower GI virus from the Sharona nebula that was almost worse than dysentery. Mickey and a couple other people almost died of dehydration and he gave it to basically everyone in IT before he even knew he was sick. It was really bad, but thank gods no one outside the organization ended up catching it, once they realized what was going on they put the whole facility on lockdown for a month until it died off on its own. It was awful, but it could’ve been so much worse. And so that’s why we wash up and quarantine when we come back from missions now,” she told him matter of factly, holding open the door to the decontamination chamber, which looked suspiciously like a repurposed locker room.

In spite of Jake’s teasing, nothing happened inside the chamber. They stripped down in shy silence, purposefully avoiding each other's gaze as they removed their clothes, which seemed a bit silly after everything else they had been through. Rose made it to the showers before he did, too consumed with an internal debate on whether he should even bother attempting to empty the trans dimensional pockets of his suit into one of the absurdly tiny plastic baggies Torchwood provided. Eventually he just tossed everything into the yellow bin with a frustrated sigh and hoped that none of the ephemera left in the pockets from the other universe got lost in the decontamination process. He was 90% sure he had a bag of jelly babies still buried in there somewhere, hopefully they were easy to find on Pete’s World.

By the time he made his way to the showers Rose was just stepping out, treating him to a brief but glorious glimpse of her naked, dripping wet body as she finished wrapping herself up in one of the oversized towels. Pulse quickening, he cursed his rubbish new half-human body and its uncontrollable hormonal spikes and got into the shower, turning the dial to cold. The icy deluge of water almost knocked the breath from his lungs but he powered through it, focusing on counting the tiles on the floor to avoid thinking about what the rest of her nude form looked like and the unrelenting hard-on it was giving him imagining it. How did human males cope with a body that was so bloody reactive? He sucked his teeth, turned the dial as far right as it would go and finished soaping himself up in water that felt like it’d been brought in from Woman Wept and just barely thawed. Shivering, he exited the shower and quickly dried off before getting dressed in Torchwood-issued light blue scrubs that were surprisingly much softer than they looked. When he left the decontamination chamber, Rose was leaning against the wall and waiting for him outside.

“How was your shower?” she asked casually, sizing him up.

“Frigid,” he answered, suddenly becoming nervous for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He ruffled his hair, shaking the excess water out of it.

Nodding, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah...mine too.”

Down the hallway Jake called to them, his tone playful. “Quit your lollygagging and get to quarantining! Your Rando’s is getting cold!”

“No one asked you, Simmonds!” Rose shot back, but the corner of her mouth was turned up in a grin.

Summoning his courage he held out his hand, _that hand_ , and wiggled his fingers at her. “Shall we?

“I think we shall,” she replied, taking his hand. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation overheard rocks the new new new Doctor's world.

“Isolation dorm” didn’t do it justice-the place they were brought to quarantine was more like a little luxury flat, decorated in a contemporary style with lots of glass and stainless steel and accented with stark whites and calming nautical blues that reminded him of the TARDIS, another universe away. “Blimey,” he muttered, for lack of anything better to say. “This is considered a dorm?”

Rose shrugged uncomfortably. “Not a typical one, no. Being the director’s step-daughter does have some perks. For a while there towards the end of the project I was hopping dimensions so often that it didn’t really make sense to go back to my own flat so I’d just stay here in between jumps when I needed to. Since I was here so often Pete fancied it up a bit for me and it’s alright I guess but I don’t know, it’s all a bit much. I haven’t quite gotten used to becoming absurdly wealthy after growing up on a council estate so this all still feels a bit too stuffy and posh to me in the same way visiting your gran’s house with all the antiques you’re not supposed to touch does. And besides that, I’ve never cared much for the white walls.”

“Can’t imagine why,” he said, smiling ruefully. 

“They’re just too...you know,” she said, shrugging.

“Yeah….” he replied. He _did_ know, all too well. Stark white walls had been a recurring theme in his nightmares for months after Canary Wharf and he was able to pick up just enough of a faint psychic impression to know that they had been for her too and probably still were. Idly, he wondered just how much of his telepathic abilities he’d actually retained as her surface thoughts seemed more obscured than they had been before. Of course having been at torchwood as long as she had, maybe they’d taught her some tricks of the trade as well.

“How long has it been for you?” she blurted out suddenly, her fingers curling and uncurling at her sides. “How long has it been since…?”

“Too long,” he answered quickly, although he knew the precise answer, exactly how many excruciating days had passed between losing Rose and finding her again. “Too long,” he reiterated, shocked to find himself blinking back tears. What was with this overly emotional human body? “How long has it been for you?”

“Mmmm...just shy of four years?” she said hesitantly. “Feels like much longer.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, despondent and unable to staunch the tears that were now freely flowing down his face.

“Don’t cry,” she whispered gently, wiping the tears from his cheeks with her thumb, as soft and sympathetic as ever. “If you start to cry, I’m gonna cry too, and if I start to cry it’s gonna be ugly.”

He gave a watery little laugh. “I just...I can’t believe we found each other again, after all this time. And I can’t...I can’t believe it’s _me_ here with you right now, not _him_. Honestly, I’ve barely had time to wrap my brain around my own existence, let alone everything else and I’m just...I’m just so afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?” she asked, stroking his cheek soothingly.

“I’m afraid I’m not the person you think I am. I know I have all his memories and knowledge and experience...but we aren’t exactly the same, and I think you know that. And I’m afraid...I’m afraid that you won’t love me the way you loved him,” he answered honestly, surprising even himself. For some reason he felt less of a need to obfuscate what he was really thinking as he had before, when the burden of being the last of the Time Lords had still been upon him. Things had unfolded as they had, he had played his cards and admitted that he loved her on the beach and now he was here. What was the use of trying to play pretend with her anymore, when whatever it was between them had always been as inevitable as the sun rising?

Rose’s own composure cracked then, and a single tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and tracked down her cheek. Wrapping her arms around him, she laid her head against his chest and listened to the thumping of his single human heart. “Oh Doctor,” she murmured quietly. 

It was the first time she had called him that since they had left the beach a few hours ago and it sounded more like a mourning song carried by the winds of a storm than the name he’d chosen for himself so long ago. He’d been a different person then, quite literally, and he was a much different person now. Instinctively, he folded his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, which smelled faintly of soap but mostly of the comforting and vaguely honeyish smell that he’d come to associate with Rose over the years. It was a smell he loved so much that after he had lost her he had sealed up her room in the TARDIS with all of her clothes and belongings and would only visit it on the worst of nights, where sleep was as seemingly impossible as crossing into another universe. Suddenly, domestics seemed a lot more daunting and complicated than time or space travel had ever been. The Doctor had always been the strong and cheerfully optimistic one, but now he felt like he was the one who needed reassuring. That he was still the Doctor, that they were still the Doctor and Rose, the same at heart if all else had changed. “We’ll be okay...right?”

The moment was inconveniently interrupted by the shrill ringing of a phone coming from a digital interface hung on the wall behind them. “Incoming video call from Pete Tyler!” the digital assistant announced in a voice that was entirely too chipper.

Rose hastily pulled back from him and swiped the tears off her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Sorry, I should probably answer that. Might be important. Do you mind stepping into the other room? I’d like a bit of privacy, if that’s okay.”

Slightly deflated, he rounded the corner into the den and slumped into a nearby living chair that probably cost a small fortune. “No, of course not,” he mumbled to himself. Sharing had never been one of his strong suits and now he was going to be forced to share the single most important thing in his world, the only important person in his world, the only thing he had left after losing everything and everyone else. It was going to be a bit of an adjustment and he was already feeling quite a bit like a stroppy child after having been turned out. He wasn’t trying to be nosey, but he could just about see the video chat from where he was positioned and he wasn’t inclined to move. For whatever reason, he felt much less anxious when he could still lay eyes on Rose, as though part of him were afraid this was all just a dream and she might evaporate into the ether if he lost sight of her. Stranger things had happened and a tiny, absurd part of him still wasn’t wholly convinced that this wasn’t some sort of fever dream hallucination, simulation, or otherwise imagined reality because good things didn’t happen to the Doctor and the Doctor most certainly was not allowed to fall in love with human beings.

“Hey sweetheart, welcome home. I’m terribly sorry to bother you during quarantine, I’m sure you’ve got your hands full, but there was someone here who couldn't sleep and insisted on talking to you,” Pete said, his tone harried. Something that was hopefully chocolate syrup was smeared across his forehead and his eyes had the hardened look of a man who had seen some things.

A small, golden haired child with warm brown eyes popped into the frame then, waving frantically, her face covered in ice cream. The resemblance to both Rose and Jackie was undeniable. “Hi!”

Rose laughed, but it sounded nervous and forced. “Hey you! I hope you’re being good. I heard you were having trouble sleeping.”

“I’m always being good, that’s why I get ice cream,” the child insisted, inciting laughter from both Rose and Pete. “I can’t sleep because I was worrying about you. When are you coming home?”

Rose’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed deeply. “Soon, love. Just a couple more days and then I’ll be yours, I won’t need to leave again any time soon.”

“Promise?” the child asked.

“Promise,” Rose replied solemnly. “And Pete? Maybe she’d sleep if you’d stop sugaring her up before bed time, just a thought.”

“Duly noted. Please forgive me for being old and tired, I’ve got your brother here ready to riot as well and your mother won’t be home for a few more days either so it’s ice cream time and I’ll hear no judgment about it. Say bye-bye, Aster,” Pete instructed the little girl.

Giggling, the child waved goodbye. “Bye-bye, mummy. I miss you!”

“I miss you too, baby,” Rose replied softly, glancing back over her shoulder at him just as the call ended and the screen cut to black.

The Doctor attempted to swallow the leaden lump in the back of his throat as his brain struggled to process what he’d just overheard. This day could not possibly get anymore improbable or insane. Now he knew why Rose had asked him for privacy but it was too late. He had seen the call, seen the little girl, and she had seen him looking. Shakily, he got to his feet and met her midway between the den and the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for the conversation that was about to come but the only thing he could manage to say was, “Mummy? Sorry...did that child just call you mummy?”

Tears spilled freely over her cheeks then. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I tried to that day at the beach...but I saw the look on your face and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to tell you that I got pregnant the first and only time we ever slept together, not on the heels of you saying the universe would collapse if you tried to come through. I couldn’t bear to break your hearts the way it broke mine to know I would have to go through it all without you. Can you ever forgive me?”

Choking back a sob, he wrapped his arms around her and held her like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. “I suppose if you can learn to love me, I can learn to forgive you. We have a daughter,” he said in amazement. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for the revelation, and yet it already rang true, twinging in the place where his second heart would have been. The Doctor, Rose...and their daughter. The one adventure the man in the blue box never would have but a human-Time Lord Metacrisis could. It felt impossible but his single heart already knew it to be true.

“We have a daughter,” Rose affirmed tearfully. “Aster Jane, she just turned three not that long ago. And she’s...fantastic. Just like her dad.”

“He didn’t know, did he?” he asked, unable to stop himself. An indescribable feeling was unfurling in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn’t tell if it was dread, relief, or a mixture of both. “You didn’t tell him?”

Rose looked guiltily at her feet. “There wasn’t time. We all got a bit caught up in the whole saving the multiverse business and well, you know how that all ended. I wanted to tell her, but mum and Jack and Mickey and Martha and you were there and the timing just never felt right. Do you think it would’ve changed his mind...if he had known?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, his heart squeezing painfully in the back of his throat. “And I’m sorry. Sorry you went through it alone. Sorry you got stuck with me after you fought so long to get back to him. I...I know this probably isn’t what you wanted.”

“I’m not sorry at all,” she said, hugging him tightly. “You’re the one who said I love you, and that means more to me than you’ll ever know. So you just hush, you don’t need to apologize, and you certainly don’t need to apologize for him, cause he’s the one who made a decision for both of us without stopping to ask either of us if it was what we wanted. For better or worse, we’re stuck with each other and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He chuckled wryly. “You’re not just saying that because we’re stuck in quarantine together for the next three days and stuck on this planet for the rest of our lives?”

Leaning up on her toes, she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t want to be quarantined with anyone else. And who knows...carpets and mortgages and white picket fences might not actually be that bad. But the important thing is that we’ll get to find out...together.”

“Together,” he reiterated, tenderly brushing the hair back from her forehead. Had a single word ever been more thrilling? He wanted to sweep her into his arms and pepper her body with kisses but his head was still spinning with the knowledge that Rose had done the impossible and made him a father again. Instead, he settled for kissing her full on the mouth, too brief to be a proper snog but too long to be a chaste kiss and hopefully just long enough to convey all the things he wanted to do to her in the dark later. 

Standing on her toes, she nuzzled his neck, perhaps sensing his unease. “You alright?”

“I’m always alright,” he answered reflexively, a lie that he couldn’t seem to stop telling in any incarnation. “I just...I can’t stop thinking about her. Our daughter. What is she like?”

“Like you,” she said solemnly. “Charismatic, clever, compassionate. Loves to take things apart to see how they work and put them back together, much to mum and Pete’s dismay. She started talking in full sentences at ten months and she hasn’t really shut up since then so in some ways it’s like you were never gone at all.”

He laughed. Even in the most serious moments, Rose had always been able to sense when to lighten the mood. “Oi! I’m not sure if I should be flattered or offended.”

Rose smiled before her expression grew more serious. “After Bad Wolf Bay when I really thought I’d never see you again that was probably the most depressed I’ve ever been. If I hadn’t been pregnant with Aster at the time I think I probably would’ve gone down a much darker path, like I did after Jimmy Stone. Even before she was born it was like she could read my mind. Any time I really missed you or I felt sad or overwhelmed it was like she could feel it too and I don’t know...I could feel her in my mind, like she was trying to tell me it would all be okay and to press onwards no matter what. Gave me a reason to get up and out of bed, to feed and take care of myself, to keep on fighting for the world and the universe. She and the stars are the best gifts you ever gave me. Be flattered...having her saved my life.”

His heart broke at the thought of Rose, alone, pregnant, and grieving, left to raise their child on her own. “I guess we’re finally even then because you saved mine,” he said earnestly, clasping both her hands in his. “It just doesn’t feel real, knowing she’s out there. Our daughter. I missed her first words, her first steps...I just wish I could’ve been there for her. For you. I’m sorry I wasn’t. If I had known...nothing in the universe could’ve stopped me. I would’ve found a way, universe be damned.”

“Hey, enough of that,” she admonished gently. “I know you would’ve been there if you could’ve. I forgive you, and I know she will too. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

“Does she know about me?” he asked anxiously.

Rose tilted her head, evidently considering her answer. “She knows all sorts of things that I’ve never told her. Suppose she intuits it or reads my mind; I don’t know but it’s bloody uncanny and she is most definitely your child. She asked me once where her daddy was and I didn’t know what to say cause how do you even begin to explain us or what happened to a toddler? So I just told her that you were a traveler and you had gotten lost but that I was working to help find you a way home. That seemed to satisfy her and I thought that was the end of it but the next day she gave me a picture she drew of a woman in a blue jacket holding hands with a man in blue and red suit and told me it was a picture of ‘mommy and daddy finding each other again’. I knew it was silly, or I thought it was anyway, but I wore that bloody leather jacket every mission after that because I was almost afraid I’d jinx things if I didn’t. The blue and red threw me off at the time but I guess she really did know something the rest of us didn’t. Funny how things work out like that.”

“She predicted the Metacrisis,” he said, awed. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the only time something like that happened? Where she seemed to predict the future?” 

Rose shrugged and cleared her throat uncomfortably. “There have been other things, little things here and there. She always knows when there’s a storm coming, for instance. Nine times out of ten when I misplace something she knows exactly where to find it. Any time I’m upset or in a bad mood she knows just what to say or do to cheer me up. And um...a couple of weeks ago actually she um...she told me she would be getting a baby brother or sister for Christmas this year. So there’s that.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened into saucers at the implications of what she’d just told him. “Oh wow, okay then. Wow. Wait, really?”

“Yep,” Rose replied, popping the ‘p’ and quirking her eyebrows in a frankly impressive imitation of himself.

“Has she ever made an incorrect prediction before?” he asked, knowing it was a mostly rhetorical question even as he was calculating how many days away Christmas was from then in his head.

Rose shrugged, holding her palms up in a gesture of uncertainty. “Not as such no, but I wasn’t exactly keeping a tally. I mean...she was right about you, after all.”

Taking a deep breath, he stood up straight and grabbed her firmly by the hips. “Well...I guess we know how we’ll be passing this quarantine.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes.

“Probably best if I just show you,” he said, picking her up and carrying her to the bedroom


End file.
